THE OPERATION ENDS
Firm in his intention of bringing his subject to his death by slow
degrees, M. Eliphas de la Nox took Theophrastus slowly through the
imprisonment, trial, and condemnation of Cartouche. But I omit that
part of the narrative of M. Lecamus, since the historians have
described that imprisonment and trial at length. I take it up at the
point at which Cartouche was on his way to the Torture-chamber that
they might force from him the names of his accomplices.
"And now," says M. Lecamus in his narrative, "we were approaching the
crucial point of the operation: _to kill Cartouche without killing
Theophrastus_. Simple enough words, but the most difficult operation in
Psychic Surgery. Truly M. de la Nox had been right when he said that he
was about to tempt Providence. Truly, he had assumed the most appalling
responsibility, the risk of killing Theophrastus without killing
Cartouche, and consequently of letting that fiend in human form again
become reincarnate in some unfortunate contemporary.
"But then it was M. Eliphas de Saint-Elme de Taillebourg de la Nox who
had assumed the responsibility, the greatest living expert in Psychical
Surgery, the delicacy of whose Astral Scalpel is known to the initiates
throughout the world, even to far Thibet. He knew how to move the
spirit, quietly and calmly, _round its own death_, so preparing it for
the last moment. _He made his dead man live till the very moment at
which he made his dead man die!_
"He had brought Theophrastus-Cartouche to the hour when his jailors
took him from his cell to lead him to the Torture-chamber. His next
question was:
"'And where are you now, Cartouche?'
"'I am going down a little staircase at the end of Straw Alley... They
are opening a grating... I am in the darkness of the cellars... These
cellars frighten me... I know them well... Ah, yes: I was shut up in
these cellars in the days of Philippe-le-Bel!'
"M. de la Nox raised his voice in a tone of awful command, and said:
"'Cartouche! You _are_ Cartouche! You are in those cellars by order of
the _Regent_!'
"Then he muttered, 'Philippe-le-Bel! Where in Heaven's name are
we going now? We must not stray. We must not! Where are you now,
Cartouche?'
"'I am going deeper into the night of the cellars, I am surrounded
by guards--many guards. It is too dark to see how many... Ah! I see
at the end there, right at the end, a ray which I know well. _It is
a square ray which the sun has forgotten there since the beginning
of the history of France!_... My guards are not French Guards, they
distrust all the French Guards. My guards are commanded by the military
lieutenant of the Châtelet.'
"There was a pause as M. de la Nox let Cartouche continue on his
painful way; then he said: 'And where are you now, Cartouche?'
"'I am in the Torture-chamber... About me are men dressed in long
robes... Their faces are masked... They are binding me to the stool
of Question... They are thick ropes... Well, they need them thick
for me... But if they think they're going to get anything out of me,
they're wrong--altogether wrong!'
"The face of Theophrastus was set in an expression of stubborn pride,
almost ferocious. Slowly it weakened in intensity as we stood waiting
and watching him; then suddenly it changed to an expression of pain,
and he uttered an ear-splitting yell.
"M. de la Nox and I started back; Marceline uttered a cry.
"Plainly M. de la Nox did not expect that yell, for he said in a tone
of surprise, 'Why did you yell like that, Cartouche?'
"'I yell because it's so awful _not to be able to denounce my
accomplices_! Their names are on the tip of my tongue; but they won't
come off it! Can't they see that if I don't denounce them, it's because
I can't move the tip of my tongue? Why didn't Cartouche move the tip of
his tongue? I can't; and it's most unfair!'
"M. de la Nox was silent for a while. There was no reason why he should
harrow our sensibilities with the pangs of that old-world ruffian. It
was bad enough to see the anguished face of Theophrastus. After a while
it grew serene again; and M. de la Nox said:
"'And what are you doing now, Cartouche?'
"'They are leaving me alone,' said Theophrastus. 'Only the doctor and
the surgeon are feeling my pulse... They are congratulating themselves
on having chosen the torture of the Boot, because it is least dangerous
to life, and the least liable to accidents.'
"I observed that he spoke in his ordinary voice, that it was not
weakened by the pain he had suffered. It seemed as if he only felt it
at the moment of its actual infliction, that he did not feel the after
pain.
"There came another long pause; then suddenly Theophrastus uttered
another ear-splitting yell.
"'What's the matter now, Cartouche?' said M. de la Nox anxiously.
"'It's the tip of my tongue!' cried Theophrastus furiously.' Can't
these silly fools see that the names are on the tip of my tongue, and
won't come off it? Why don't the idiots take them off it? Is it my
fault that Cartouche didn't split?'
"'But Cartouche was silent: why are you yelling?' said M. de la Nox.
"'_They're torturing Cartouche; but it's Theophrastus Longuet who
yells!_'
"M. de la Nox seemed thunderstruck by this response. He turned and said
to us in a trembling voice: 'Then--then it's _he_ who suffers.'
"It was the truth; one could not doubt it to see the anguish on the
contorted face of Theophrastus. It was Cartouche who was tortured and
Theophrastus who suffered. That proved the _identity_ of the soul; _but
it also proved that the pain had not ceased to be effective after two
hundred years_. That was what dismayed M. de la Nox. It was the first
time that a case of this kind had come under his observation during
his operations with the Astral Scalpel. The pain of Cartouche found
voice through two centuries; this cry of anguish which had not issued
from his stubborn lips, _had waited two hundred years to burst from the
lungs of Theophrastus Longuet_!
"M. Eliphas de la Nox buried his head, his luminous head, in his hands
and prayed ardently: 'In the beginning you were the Silence! Æon
eternal! Source of Æons!...'
"At the end of the prayer he felt Theophrastus' pulse and listened
carefully to the beating of his heart. Then he said:
"'M. Longuet is plainly a man of strong constitution, and thoroughly
sound. In fact, from that point of view there's scarcely anything to
fear. _He will bury Cartouche._ I think we ought to go through with the
operation.'
"I said that I was of his opinion. Marceline hesitated a little, and
then bade him continue.
"'And now what are they doing, Cartouche?' said M. de la Nox.
"'They keep asking me those useless questions; but I can't answer,'
said Theophrastus impatiently. 'And I keep asking myself what that man
in the right-hand corner of the cell is doing. He has his back turned
to me; and I can hear a _sound of clinking iron_... The executioner
is at the moment taking it easily. He's leaning against the wall and
yawning... There's a lamp on the table which lights up two men who keep
on writing and writing. What they're writing I can't conceive, for I
haven't said anything--I can't. It's the man in the corner that puzzles
me. There's a red light on the wall as if he were between me and a
brazier. I wonder what those irons are he's messing about with.'
"'It must be the red-hot irons. They used them,' said M. de la Nox; and
he shivered.
"We were silent; and presently there came a series of dreadful,
ear-splitting yells from Theophrastus. M. de la Nox turned a very pale
and troubled face to us, and declared that he had never come across,
or even suspected that one could come across, pain so _effective_.
He had no doubt that it must be owing to the fact that he had never
before operated on souls reincarnate after an interval of less than
five hundred years; that even those were very rare; and the bulk of
his clientele was composed of souls at least two thousand years old.
I fancied that he was somewhat out of his depth; and it surprised me
beyond words.
"Again Theophrastus yelled; then suddenly Marceline cried:
"'Look! Look, his hair!'
"The most surprising sight met our eyes: _the hair of Theophrastus was
turning white_!
"The whiteness spread over it as smoothly as the edge of the rising
tide spreads over the sand, but more slowly. In five minutes all his
hair had turned white except one lock on his brow.
"We were silent; and I wiped the perspiration from my face. M. de la
Nox was panting; Marceline was sobbing. Somehow that slow whitening
of the hair was more painful, more impressively dreadful than those
piercing, ear-splitting yells.
"M. de la Nox seemed almost at his wits' end. Twice I saw him open his
lips to question Theophrastus; twice he shut them without a word. Then
suddenly he stooped down and listened to the beating of Theophrastus'
heart. He stood upright again with an air of relief and said:
"'What are you doing now, Cartouche?'
"'Shamming dead. After the red-hot irons and the boiling water they
poured into my ears I shammed dead. They have left me... I am slipping
the paper I wrote in my cell this morning, with a splinter of wood, and
my blood, into the crack in the wall above my head. It tells where I've
hid my treasures.'
"He was silent again; and again I saw the face of M. de la Nox grow
intent as once more he concentrated all his being on his astral work.
How I wished I had attained a height of psychic development which would
have enabled me to follow the wonderful, the miraculous movements of
his Astral Scalpel.
"It must have been nearly three-quarters of an hour later that he
heaved a deep sigh and said, 'Our work is nearly at an end. Where are
you now, Cartouche?'
"'I don't know quite what has happened,' said Theophrastus. 'I hid the
document; and I have not seen anyone since. When I open my eyes--it
is rather an effort--I do not recognise the place to which they have
brought me... I'm certainly not in the Torture-chamber, nor in my cell
in Montgomery Tower... There's a faint blue light falling through the
bars of a grating in front of me... The moon is coming to visit me...
The moonlight has descended two or three of the steps which lead up
from the grating... I try to move... I can't... I'm a log. My will no
longer commands my muscles or limbs... It's as if all relations between
my will and my body had ceased... My brain is only master of my sight
and understanding. It is no longer master of my actions... My poor
limbs! I feel them _scattered_ round about me... I must have reached
the point of suffering at which one suffers no more... But where am
I?... The moonlight descends two more steps... And again two more
steps... Ah! what is that it lights up?... An eye--a big eye... The
moonlight moves... A skull... The moonlight moves... A bony hand!... I
understand! I understand! They have thrown me into a common grave!...
The moonlight moves... There are two legs of a dead man lying across my
body!... I recognise those steps now!... And that grating!... I am in
the charnel-house of Montfaucon!... _I am frightened!_
"'When I used to go up the street of the Dead to carouse at the
Chopinettes, I often looked through that grating. I looked through it
curiously because I saw that one day I should lie in the charnel-house.
But never did it occur to me that when a body lay there, _it could look
out from the other side of the grating_! And now my body looks out
through it! They have thrown me into the charnel-house because they
believed me dead! I am buried alive with the bodies of hanged men! My
wretched fate surpasses anything that the imagination of men could
invent!
"'The saddest reflections assail me. I ask myself by what trick of
Fate I am reduced to such an extremity. I am forced to confess that
Fate played no part in the matter. It was my pride, nothing but my
accursed pride. I could have quietly remained King of all the robbers,
_if there had been any living with me_. Pretty-Milkmaid was right when
she said at the Queen Margot _that there was no longer any living with
me_. I would no longer listen to a word from anyone; and when I called
together my Grand Council, I took no notice whatever of the resolutions
it passed. I took a delight in playing the despot; and I ended with
that mania for cutting up everyone I suspected into little bits. My
lieutenants ran greater risks in serving me than in disobeying me.
They betrayed me; and it was quite logical. _Oh, it's quite time for
these reflections, now that I'm in the charnel-house!_
"'I'm alive in this charnel-house, alive among the dead; and for the
first time in my life _I am frightened_.'
"Theophrastus was silent for a minute; and we looked at one another
with harried eyes. Then in the same mournful, plaintive tones he took
up his tale again.
"'It's odd--very odd. Now that I'm on the very boundary of life and
death my senses perceive things which they could not perceive when I
was in health. My ears hear no more--that boiling water destroyed my
hearing--_yet they do hear_. There is a footfall, a slinking footfall
on the steps leading down to the grating... Suddenly the moon ceases to
light the charnel-house... Then I see between me and the moon on the
steps of the charnel-house, a man! a living man!... Maybe I am saved!
I wanted to cry aloud with joy; and perhaps I should have cried aloud,
if the horror of what I _feel_, of what I _know_, had not sealed my
lips. I _feel_, I _know_ that this man has come to rob me of my hand...
I read it, clearly, _in his brain_. A lady of the Court has sent him
for the charm--the charm to keep her husband's love--the hand of a
murderer--the hand of Cartouche!
"'_I read it in his brain as clearly as if I read it written_... He
is lighting a lantern... He has unlocked the grating and entered the
charnel-house... He has found my body, and is stooping over it... He
has taken my left hand in his left hand, and his knife gleams in the
light of the lantern... He is cutting through my wrist... I do not feel
the blade in my wrist; I see it... Ah! I begin to feel the knife!...
Oh! My wrist! My wrist!... It is nearly severed... Ah! Ah! Ah!... It is
severed!
"'What is this... The man howls... He is dancing about among the
dead... I see! I see... My hand has come away in the left hand of the
man who howls, but by a last miracle of the last life in my wrist, _as
it was severed_, my hand gripped the hand of the man who howls!...
Ha! Ha! he can't get rid of it!... It's gripped him!... How it grips
him!... He is dragging at it with his right hand!... He can't stir
it!... Ah, it isn't easy to rid oneself of a _dead man's last grip_!...
He is out of the charnel-house, howling!... He bounds up the steps,
howling!... As he goes, howling, he is waving, like a madman, in the
moonlight, _my gripping hand_!'
"The voice of Theophrastus died faintly away; and I heard the teeth of
M. de la Nox chatter. Then he whispered:
"'Where are you now, Cartouche?'
"'I am entering the radiant darkness of death!'